


State your name

by StayHomo



Category: The Gentlemen (2019)
Genre: AU, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24319948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StayHomo/pseuds/StayHomo
Summary: 'Coach is bad news, Raymond'
Relationships: Coach/Raymond Smith
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	State your name

**Author's Note:**

> Translation for Bleeding_Changer  
> Original available at https://ficbook.net/readfic/9404735

“Ernie, this is not the fucking time to keep your cards close to your chest. Just tell me his name isn’t Mickey Pearson.”

“Blimey, Coach, are you a Gipsy too?”

Coach watches at that tall dumb brick without blinking.

The silence which pierced Coach’s head and devoured the buzz of other guys was equal to the silence of Ray’s house.

Raymond sits down on his couch listening to the echo of the voice on another end of London.

“We found out whose guys raided the farm.”

“Coach’s guys, innit?”

“Yeah. Stop, Raymond, how did you know?”

Raymond blinks impatiently.

“He should meet me in the pub. Make it happen.”

His phone falls on cushion, Smith throws his head back to the headrest.

‘Coach is bad news, Raymond’.

\----- 

Raymond is standing with his back to the pub entry and slowly stirring his tea.

As he hears the door squeak, he looks into the mirror. The man who used to be Raymond’s main problem carefully looks around and then stays there all intent.

“Feel free to talk.”

After 17 years only some things have added up - grey temples, weird glasses and real confidence.

Smith remembers happy Coach, running around the field after another victory of the university team. He looks down into the teacup.

When something begins to move on the edge of his consciousness, his job pops up as an old reflex and takes over Raymond’s attention.

Anyway, the grenade has been thrown.

\----- 

All the times they meet again they discuss only the things to be done to pay the Toddlers’ debt.  
Raymond seems to feel his advantage and instructs about all the things they have to do, while Coach eyes his mannered companion – well built, impeccable three-piece suit, strong legs in trousers with neat creases. A goddam piece of art.

Coach is careful, courteous and polite with Raymond, because he has already got to know that people like Mr Smith are posh foxes with tough instincts.

But Coach feels free around Ray, it seems like they somehow knew each other, and it upsets his compass needle.

So, when his new friend offers him a pint, with a wordless permission of his host Coach opens the bottle with a pop.

“Be my guest,” Raymond’s words land somewhere on his back and Coach sips on tender beer foam. He knows that this phrase is not just courtesy.

Raymond’s shoulders don’t seem so tense when he sits down by his side on a bar stool.

Coach feels they are on equal terms now.

The Compass goes mad.

\----- 

Raymond looks from shithead Fletcher to grumpy Coach.

A live picture pops up in his head traitorously – Coach smiles as confidently as he falls into an armchair in a lit room of the university newspaper.

In his previous life everyone called Coach Alex and he was “a perspective sports player”.

The sound of the box lock brings Raymond back to the smell of steak.

“I’ll see you around.”

“With the greatest respect I hope not.”

‘The past wants to stay in the past, Raymond’.

\-----

After five minutes Coach shows Raymond four fingers, shakes his head, looking at the corpses and thinks that regrets his words he said five minutes ago.

\-----

Raymond is not surprised when Coach appears on his doorstep just because Coach warned him about his visit.

The fresh smell of workouts and fights suddenly fills the house.

“So, it seems I haven’t asked for the fifth favour.”

“I knew what Micky could do with my boys after all the shit they’d done.”

Raymond waits in anticipation.

“So, I came to see you as a gesture of thanks. As far as I can see no one bothers us and it was all you.”

“It’s not rocket science. Micky won’t bother you as long as you don’t bother him.”

Coach slowly nods looking around the room. A purple wall, vase with artificial flowers. Tableware with ethnical pattern.

It doesn’t suit Raymond’s old-fashioned taste.

Smith traces Coach’s look and for some reason confesses:

“It’s handmade.”

“Can I take a closer look?”

Raymond shrugs. ‘Be my guest’.

The original reason of the visit of this Irish man dressed in one of his hipster suits dissipates in the clarity of a long downpour.

This evening Coach stays at Raymond’s place for dinner. After that they go out to the back yard.

Twenty-year-old Ray would have never thought he would watch the blurry sunset with Alex Scott.

Smith lights up a cigarette and notices Coach flinch. He’s used to slapping Toddlers for bad habits. He smiles and feels a sense of deja vu he’s never felt before.

“I loved such evenings back at the university. I used to sit on the lawn and look at the big windows of the new brick campus.”

He doesn’t say that sometimes Coach appeared on those wide windowsills looking out of his room’s window shouting something to his sports friends. Ray worries the wet grass and finishes his thought.

“The smell of the cigarette blended with after rain freshness is another level of fifty-fifty.”

Coach zips up his jacket ready to leave.

His mind conjures the picture which seems way too familiar.

His eyes follow face features of gorgeous fox who managed to break The Compass.

\-----

Raymond looks at his reflection in the mirror after another fight with people unsatisfied with Micky’s business that has come to an end with casualties on the other side.

Two wrinkles between his eyebrows silently ask him when he smiled the last time …… not around Coach.

The perfect hairstyling, gorgeous glasses and the shirt not even touched by wrinkles pet his nervous tic.

But anyway, his eyes catch someone’s blood on his beard which is not even dripping. It has already dried up, soaked, it has already set.

Raymond purses his lips not to blink.

An electric shaver helps to get rid of length, a straight razor makes Ray a man he has nearly forgotten.

\----- 

In his office Coach goes through fight and training timetables, changing some papers for others, unclipping old notifications. But he doesn’t touch the left corner – memorable documents for his achievements and his boys’ victories. There are pictures of toddlers in the ring, motto for their club and a piece from the university paper – an interview with Coach.

Coach freezes. He watches carefully the small letters at the end of the article.

_Written by John Ludgate._   
_Edited by Raymond Smith._

“You fucking bastard,” Coach crosses his arms over his chest. There’s a small laugh stuck in his throat.

_Beautiful, clean shaved Ray shamelessly looks at Alex, from time to time remembering about the interview and making notes for John’s future article. But his sass is not arrogance of the golden boy. It is his feelings he can’t let go._

\-----

Raymond’s obsessive-compulsive stays calm when he looks at a stain on the sleeve of his cardigan. Smith blinks, says “right” and unbuttons it.

Coach knows the price for patience.

Ray looks up at Coach. This look is staged calm.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

But also, Coach knows when waiting is useless. He makes a step forward, grabs him by stained cardigan and pulls him up.

Ray freezes inches away from Coach’s face. His hands are under the cardigan and keep going up carefully.

Raymond closes his eyes painfully slow and kisses Coach. The kiss is unclear, easy and tender. Fingers rightfully wrinkle the shirt and reach wide neck and scratchy chin.

Coach’s effort gets the cardigan to the table top.

“Don’t you want to show me around the house?”

“First thing in the morning.”

Coach takes off Raymond’s glasses and puts them on top of the cardigan – flag on a fortress.

The second kiss is excruciating, wild, desperate. They take their time and they know being greedy is the best decision.

Raymond presses himself against Coach – he’s burning. Raymond hears the other’s soft roar of breath and lets himself get lost.

The grenade explodes.

\-----

Smith makes tasty tea. On the table top there’s a skillet cooling down instead of a cardigan. Raymond is sitting in front of him dressed in shirt and trousers.

Coach likes to choose the right moment.

“So, Raymond. Have you put a tick in front of “get laid with Alex Scott”?”

Smith takes a sip of tea and Coach can swear he wants to blink nervously.

Ray gives him an unreadable look and then shrugs:

“A big one.”

Raymond takes a newspaper, reads a fresh report. Coach hides a laugh in a nearly empty cup and admires Mr Smith’s ability to keep his face.

When they plan on meeting this evening each of them thinks about his own.

Raymond thinks that he should have shaved a lot earlier.

Coach thinks that he doesn’t need the Compass anymore.


End file.
